Monday, April 21, 2014

Beans & the Dead: Part II

“Whether the souls of men after death are or are not in the world
below, is a question which may be argued in this manner: The ancient
doctrine of which I have been speaking affirms that they go from this
into the other world, and return hither, and are born from the dead.
Now if this be true, and the living come from the dead, then our
souls must be in the other world, for if not, how could they be born
again?”
- Plato, Phaedo.

While
I just wrapped up the last entry on beans and the dead, it seemed
insufficient compared to the rather extensive list of associations
found with the beans. As such, I felt that a second entry should be
prepared with a range of sources – from academic to magical –
involving the item.

One of these is the – though
dated – excellent article by Alfred C. Andrews entitled The
Bean in Indo-European Totemism (1949).
The article itself is too long to quote in its entirety, but can be
found for download by way of the provided link. There is no reason
not to quote chunks of the article, however:

“The sacrifices made to the old
Italic deity Carna on the first of June consisted of bean-meal and
lard, and this day was known as the Kalendae fabariae. Beans
were also used to lay ghosts at the Lemuria and figured in the
sacrifices performed at the Parentalia. Beans also played a role in
magic rites conducted in connection with Tacita or Muta, a goddess of
the dead, and must have been used at a festival of the dead in honor
of the bean goddess Fabola or Fabula. The Priest of Jupiter was
forbidden to touch a bean or even to mention its name. The name of
Fufetia, an early Vestal, as well as that of Mettius Fufetius, is
derived from faba by Pfund, who also identifies with it that of
Modius Fabidius, reputed founder of the Cures, and even ventures to
conclude that a period once existed among the early Romans when
agriculture was devoted almost exclusively to beans. His argument
entails ingenious analysis of Roman and Sabine land measures and is
plausible in so far as it applies to beans; but there is no question
that the cultivation of spelt in Italy is at least as old as that of
the bean, and that puls made from spelt was probably the first
staple food derived from field crops. This much at least is certain,
that beans were under cultivation in Italy
as early as the Neolithic age and were an important food crop for the
early Romans. It is indeed by no means improbable that the bean was
their first cultivated vegetable.”

[...]

“One significant and provocative
factor, with respect to this abstention, is that the ancients felt
toward beans a mingled respect and dread, a complex of emotions
suggested by the Greek term ίερός,
which apparently was generally applied to an object believed to be
charged with some supernatural force, contact with which might be
either beneficial or harmful. Today we generally call this mysterious
power mana in its helpful aspect and taboo in its harmful aspect,
Beans belonged in the category of objects possessing both mana and
taboo.

The ancients advanced most divergent
explanations for the taboo on beans some
religious or spiritual, some dietetic or hygienic.
Aristotle (or his source) proposes no fewer than five different
explanations, without settling on any one of them. The heart of the
problem is to determine whether this ambivalent attitude toward beans
is an echo of earlier totemism or whether it is of different origin.

With the concept of totemism in mind,
one sees a glimmer of sense in Horace’s allusion to the faba
Pythagorae cognata and in the perplexing Pythagorean maxim, “It
is an equal crime to eat beans and the heads of one’s parents.”
It now seems clearer, too, why Pythagoras forbade his followers to
eat beans as being human flesh, on the ground that beans were
occupied by the souls of the dead and thereby took on the qualities
of human flesh. As Pliny says, “The souls of the dead are in them.”

If we accept this notion of beans being
the residence of the souls of the dead as the original, primitive
concept, diverse and apparently conflicting beliefs and practices
current in the historic period take on sense and consistency. The
simplest and most direct development was the notion that beans
assumed the character of human flesh, as the result of the presence
of souls in them. By this presence beans were rendered dynamic
receptacles of generative power, and we accordingly find peeled green
beans compared to human testicles and even said to be the generative
principle itself, the abstinence of the Pythagoreans explained as due
to the resemblance of beans to testicles, the beans of Empedocles
interpreted as an esoteric or symbolic allusion to testicles, and
beans alleged to resemble eggs in embodying the generative
principle...”

[…]

“The basic concept of beans as the
abode of the souls of the dead created an intimate association of
beans with death and gave rise to strict rules for priests concerned
with the life principle. Thus the Priest of Jupiter, whose functions
required scrupulous avoidance of contact with the dead and everything
associated with them, was forbidden, as we have seen, to touch a bean
or even to speak its name. It is therefore puzzling to read that
beans were regularly eaten at funerary banquets, funerary sacrifices,
and invocations to the deceased, for few things are more intimately
associated with death than such ceremonies as these.”

[…]

“Beans were conceived to be the
abodes of the souls of the dead, but we must be careful not to think
of these souls in terms of Christian theology as eternal entities
possessing the attributes of the physical beings in which they once
lodged. We must rather visualize them as modicums of the life
principle, vague and intangible, released from the
body at the moment of death. This packet of force, if we may so term
it, was both beneficent and maleficent. If it entered an alien
organism, it could produce malign effects; but it could be absorbed
with benefit by a related organism.

At the moment of death the soul or life
principle of a Roman escaped from his body by way of his mouth, and
the next of kin caught and inhaled this last exhalation, absorbing
the life principle. This could be done not only without danger, but
with actual benefit, for the two organisms were closely related. But
death is dangerous, inimical to life, and a person needed all the
extra vitality he could obtain from any source, not only on occasions
directly associated with death, such as mortuary banquets, but even
when making funerary sacrifices and conducting invocations to the
deceased. Therefore he ate beans, as containing the life principle.
In this connection, we may well stress again the statement of Pliny that the animae
mortuorum, i.e., the breath-souls of the dead, were in beans. And
since beans contained a life force, it was natural for them to be
eaten on Carna’s day to insure good digestion and health for the
coming year.”

And so forth. Honestly, despite
objections might have to the recurrent themes of Indo-European
totemism in the article, it still remains one of the more fascinating
places to look for information on beans and their associations with
the dead.

Given wide-spread associations with
beans as being both a generative force and a container for the soul,
it is rather surprising that beans don't factor in any of the PGM
spells and rituals involving the dead. Rather one finds them in the
PGM spells for contraception:

PGM LXIII. 24-25:

A contraceptive: Pick up a bean that
has a small bug in it, and attach it as an amulet.

PGM LXIII. 26-28

A contraceptive: Take a pierced bean
and attach it as an amulet after tying it up in a piece of mule hide.

Be that as it may, the bean does
feature in spells and rituals in later magical literature, such as
the Grimorium Verum:

“To make yourself invisible:

Begin
this operation on a Wednesday before sunrise, then take seven black
beans and a human skull. Put one bean in the mouth of the skull, two
in the nostrils, two in the eyes, and two in the ears. Next make on
the head the characters show. (Note: characters omitted. See text for
reference.) Then bury the skull so it faces the sky.

For
nine days before sunrise, sprinkle it with excellent brandy. On the
eighth day, you will find there the spirit of the deceased who will
awake, and will ask you: “What are you doing here?” You will
answer: “I am watering my plant,” and it will take the bottle,
saying, “Given me this bottle so I may water it.” You should
refuse this demand, and it will ask you again, but you must continue
to refuse until he stretches out his hand, and there you will see
figures similar to the ones you made on the head hanging from the
tips of his fingers. In this case, you may be assured that this is
the true spirit of the head.

This
is done because some other spirit could surprise you, causing you
harm and causing the operation to be in vain.

When
you give him the bottle of liquor, he will water it himself, and you
can retire. On the following day, which is the ninth day, return and
you will find that the bean crop has matured. Harvest them and put
them in your mouth, watching yourself in a mirror, and when you find
one that makes you not see yourself, this bean will be a good one to
save. You can also try them in the mouth of a child. A note that all
those which don't work should be buried with the head.”

(Joseph
H. Peterson translation, p. 49. Also see Jake Stratton-Kent's
discussion on altering the spell for other purposes in the True
Grimoire.)

A
certain Mr. Smith notes:

“Grimm's
Teutonic Mythology, Appendix, states that beans should not be eaten
during the weihnachten
(12 nights of Yule).”

This
particularly stood out to me due to something in the earlier cited
text by Alfred C. Andrews:

“It is interesting to note in this
connection that the custom of electing by lot a King and often also a
Queen of the Bean on Twelfth Night or the eve thereof used to prevail
in France, Belgium, Germany, and England. It can be traced back to
the first half of the sixteenth century and probably dates from much
more remote antiquity.”

Later he adds:

“Their use in Athenian elections by
lots is probably of too recent origin to be attributed to any such
notion and was probably motivated merely by convenience; but the use
of beans in taking the auspices among the Romans is a relic of earlier
times and may embody some such belief. One may note also the custom
of ancient diviners of placing salt and beans before their clients.
This practice has persisted into modern times, so that we find beans
used for divination on Midsummer Eve in the Azores and for the same
purpose on Twelfth Night in many other places.”

Meanwhile, for a bit of syncretism with
magical practices in the Americas, Mr. Stratton-Kent notes:

“In comparative approaches its
interesting that beans are also employed in offerings to Omolu, a god
of the cemetery in Kimbanda. Pretty sure that's only one New World
example, just happens to be the most immediate for me.

Roles
for a single type of black beans and of diverse beans varying in
colour might be differentiated; black beans are often used directly
in magic, while multi-coloured beans appear as offerings.”

While
I cannot claim this entry answers questions about all the different
associations between beans, generative forces, and the dead, it will
hopefully give others a few places to look. It is also worth noting
that Macrobius's Saturnalia
details a number of Roman festivals and rites involving beans, which
may also be worth looking into.